Photo courtesy of Kevin Snyder/Maryland Athletics.
The Louisiana benches were empty before the runner had touched home.
With a base hit right up the middle of the field, the Ragin’ Cajuns had just put an end to 15 innings of baseball.
Maryland (3-4, 0-0 Big 10) fell just short of a comeback against Louisiana (5-2, 0-0 SBC) , dropping the third and final game of their series 6-5 in a grueling pitchers duel.
With two outs, pitcher Ryan Bailey faced Blaze Rodriguez with a man on second. Neither team had scored in seven innings, but Rodriguez got just enough of a hanging breaking ball to send Steven Spalitta home for the game-winning run.
Logan Hastings got the workload of a starter, throwing 107 pitches across 7.2 innings – more pitches than every other Terps pitcher combined on Sunday afternoon. He allowed three hits and no runs over that stretch, coming out after completing the 13th inning.
Maryland starter Jake Yeager gave up just one earned run in his five innings on the mound, though three runs coming from errors ended his chances of picking up a win. An error in the second inning brought the total runs scored during Yeager’s outing to four.
Ryan Costello had a productive day against pitcher JR Tollett, hitting two crucial solo home runs to match pace with the Ragin’ Cajuns. He finished the game 2-6, bringing in a team-high 3 RBIs. David Mendez also had success against Tollett, tagging him for a home run and a double. He finished the day a triple short of the cycle.
Winds reached up to 20 mph blowing into center field, affecting defense on both sides. A gust blew a routine flyball over the head of Jordan Crosland in center in the second – it would have been the final out, but instead prolonged the inning and led to two runners scoring. On the other side, the Terps’ homers were aided by the extra push the wind gave to the ball.
Louisiana manager Matt Deggs’ frequent use of hit-and-run prevented the Maryland defense from getting out of innings quickly. The Cajuns broke up potential double play five times using the hit-and-run strategy, leading to longer innings and forcing the Terps’ pitchers to work more.
With the loss, Maryland was swept for the first time this season. Louisiana outscored them 22-12 in the series.
The Terps will travel to Newark for a midweek game against the University of Delaware. Louisiana will stay home for a game against Kansas State.
